Open Access: is that… cheating?

Open Access is established to guarantee free access, redistribution and use of primary research. Open Access makes available to the public what has been funded by the public, therefore, democratizing access to knowledge. I support these ideas so much that I believe Open Access, in its current form, is… cheating or – at least – an insult to the original spirit of the Open Access movement.

As I see it, Open Access does not provide free access to knowledge but provide access to knowledge after the taxpayers spent a huge amount of money to fund a publishing system that is obsolete and, perhaps, unnecessary.

What is the real cost of Open Access? Not only fees but the cost of yet another new section of administration in funding agencies and universities now dedicated to Open Access [1]. Is the taxpayer getting a good deal for their money? Why should not we publish free of charge on publicly funded repositories at a fraction of the costs that we are currently supporting?

Publishers run a business and they have to be financially viable. We could perhaps be astonished or outraged about the profit level of publishers of scholarly papers, but publishers are not guilty of anything. Of course, publishers are feeding on the flaws of the scientific community at the detriment of the common good. However, in contemporary societies, the public good seems not to be a responsibility of private business [2]. Therefore, this is not a rant about publishers, but a note for the policy maker and a critique to scientists, me included [3].

The large majority of scientists and engineers are overworked passionate people that dedicate their lives to the process of discovery and translation to practice with the implicit or explicit aim to improve our societies. However, scientists are also ultra-competitive people embedded in an over-competitive system of funding and rewards that damage effective and efficient collegial work creating a huge amount of waste in the process. Because of the ecosystem in which they are embedded, scientists as a community (I am one of those, just to be clear) are not capable to self-regulate in order to maximize benefit to society.

Open Access was the solution to an actual problem, solution then rigged to preserve a very expensive and inefficient system (see the debate on reproducibility of scientific results) in order to avoid changing the rules of the current ecosystem.Those scientists that are thriving in the current ecosystem are either not willing to change it to secure their leadership or too worried to lead the change that may damage the people they employ in the short term. Of course, there are many colleagues that would support these ideas, but with change not happening, I can only assume they are not a sufficiently willing or sufficiently powerful majority.

Advising funding agencies and publishers, we have saved our idol, the impact factor, we pretend that knowledge is now freely accessible. Relax (do not remove) competition, educate a new generation of scientists about the real value of their work and you will get real Open Access, with unrestricted access to literature at minimal costs. Keep the system as it is and we will continue to waste vast amounts of public money in fees, ever increasing administration, inefficient and costly peer-review, and irreproducibility of results.

Can I do something about it? Like many early or mid-career scientists, I feel trapped in this system. I do consider impact factors when I submit a paper, I do pay for Open Access, I do act as a referee (for free) and I am an academic editor (for free) of the Open Access PLoS ONE [4]. The alternative is permitting only who does not care about this issue to go ahead perpetuating the system forever or until it crashes. If I published with the modalities I wished, I would be soon purged from the scientific community. Therefore, what I can do is speaking about the issue, debating with colleagues and occasionally on social media and following the indication of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment.

I can also try, here, to appeal to the policy maker and who amongst scientists advise the policy makers to change this vicious system. We are smart people after all and many of us have very strong values and dedication to the common good. It should not be difficult to envisage strategies to democratize science with a sustainable and efficient model of publishing; many have described possible solutions. Ideally, we would replace current incentives to full-blast competition with others rewarding collegiality of efforts for a common long-term good(not just in publishing). Is science like the financial sector pre- (well, even post-) crisis?

If we do not do it, it will be the public outrage that soon or late, will force change. And because public outrage is often followed and fostered by a selfish short-sighted populist politician, it is likely this will spell serious troubles for all of us.

Was I right to single-out Open Access in this post? I am not sure, but when good ideas, the ethical ways, are abused and spoilt, I get particularly annoyed.

Notes

[1] I have a very good opinion about the team at University of Cambridge dedicated to the administration of Open Access. My opinion is not against those that are, with conviction, trying to make Open Access working. My criticism is for those that are exploiting the system making it inefficient and wasteful in the broader sense.

[2] I believe in a responsible free market, where private companies should serve the public good. But, I leave this opinion out of my judgement of publishers as business, nowadays, operates under different rules.

[3] Publishing is e necessity for a scientist as we need to create new knowledge and this is recognizable only when is made public. However, many of us recognize several unhealthy attitudes and practices in scientific publishing, particularly in biomedical research. I am no better than anyone else, I feel forced to play a game, which I try to play with integrity like the large majority of my colleagues. I try, at least, to foster debate on how we could improve the system.

[4] PLoS ONE at least addresses the issue of fairness during the peer-review process; this is why I fully endorse this initiative, at least for the time being.

[4] This post was originally published on my LinkedIn page in March 2016, but edited in its current form, as I believe it is still current.

This is my opinion and does not necessarily correspond to an institutional position of the University of Cambridge, the MRC CU or anyone working with me. My critique of certain aspects of contemporary science is not based on specific experiences with current or former employers or colleagues, but the overall experience as a scientist and the numerous passionate discussions I have with colleagues, friends and peers. In purpose, I do not cite sources because I simply wished to share my opinion on this subject; clearly, it is not an analytical study of the problem and I am not an expert on this specific topic